The Quality of Honesty
by Andrew Rice
Summary: My take on what might have been the follow-on from the elevator scene between Catherine Weaver and James Ellison in 'Adam Raised a Cain', where Catherine hints at the possible future...


**As I was working on my other story 'Excelsior Rising', this one-shot idea came to mind, and I thought I'd follow it up before continuing on with the other.**

 **Ever since I watched the series I have always had a hankering to write a follow-on from the elevator scene with Ellison and Weaver in 'Adam Raised a Cain', where Catherine hints at the coming apocalypse and her motives for creating John Henry. As I find the relationship between Catherine and Savannah intriguing, I also find that the interactions between Ellison and Catherine are also quite fascinating, and so I wrote this as I felt it might appeal.**

 **I hope you enjoy it.**

* * *

 **The Quality of Honesty**

Sitting at his desk, with the afternoon sunlight glinting off the rows of office block windows behind him, James Ellison sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking at the white cardboard box on his desk that held his as yet uneaten lunch, his appetite for it gone after the elevator ride with his boss.

 _I believe that your survival may someday depend upon John Henry's survival..._

Over and over again he heard her voice in his head, the words echoing the ones that he'd heard Dr Silberman use in his madness about the coming apocalypse, the rise of the machines...and the war that was yet to come. At the time he'd dismissed them as the delusional rantings of a broken mind, but now, after all he'd seen and heard, after Sarah Connor and Cromartie and the hard evidence of the steel horrors he knew to now exist, he could believe that he had indeed been telling the truth.

And now there had been the attempt on Savannah's life by a machine...a fact that he had concealed from her mother.

Now, sitting there with the sun at his back, he couldn't help but understand how Weaver might feel. After all, Savannah was the woman's daughter, and he'd personally ensured that she'd been kept unawares of the real threat to the child, even to the extent of getting John Henry to cover his tracks for him. He'd done so for the right reasons, of that he was absolutely certain, but it had been perhaps the wrong way to go about it, even when faced with the very real and very deadly reality of these walking, talking purveyors of death that he now knew were _machines_ , their real metal forms hidden by human flesh. He'd wanted to protect both Savannah _and_ her mother, but in doing so he'd also misled Weaver as to the actual nature of her daughter's 'abduction', and could he really blame her for being angry at him for doing so? Wouldn't he have been, had he been in her place?

" _I'll meet with Sarah Connor",_ She'd finally said, _"Make it happen"_

But when the elevator doors had begun to close her eyes had still been on him, and the memory of her cold stare, and the obvious message that they'd conveyed had also lingered in his mind.

He hadn't seen or heard from her since, and as he stared at the box on his desk he made a decision. Standing, he gathered his jacket and slipped it on, straightening his tie.

He needed to deliver Sarah's message to her...and he needed to apologise.

* * *

"Mr Ellison. Come in"

As always she knew he was there, even with her back to him.

She turned and walked calmly back from her position by her long office window, gesturing to the chair by her desk. Efficient in both words and movement, dressed in a simple black dress that flattered her slim body and seemed to accentuate her long flame-red hair, she looked the very epitome of the CEO of a leading technologies company, and one that was well used to ensuring that those who opposed her had a swift exit from her presence.

"I trust you have a response from Sarah Connor?"

Taking the proffered seat, he nodded.

"Yeah, she's fine with the arrangement. I'll pick up Savannah, and then..."

"And then I will arrange to meet with her"

It was a clipped statement, the words carefully measured.

Silence fell between them for a moment, and Ellison was very aware of her cool green eyes appraising him, her face a mask upon which nothing, not even a glimmer, of her real thoughts betrayed themselves.

"Is there something else, James?"

He shifted in his chair at her use of his first name. Rarely would she use it, only when she either wished to make a point or she was taking him into her confidence, and yet her use of it now made him feel uncomfortable, like a child that had been caught out and was now facing a reckoning before their teacher.

"Well," He began, drawing himself up a little," I...I'd like to clear the air"

She raised an eyebrow in response.

"Clear the air?"

"Well...yes"

Weaver sat back, her gaze unwavering.

"Go on"

For a second he hesitated, then took a deep breath.

"I misled you, and I was wrong to do so. I shouldn't have asked John Henry to conceal the contents of the tapes...or about my connection with Sarah Connor"

She remained silent, and he could feel the cold sensation in the pit of stomach beginning to rise. Her stare was like steel itself, he thought, hard and uncompromising, and as he met her eyes, he remembered a phrase that she had used recently.

' _In for a penny, in for a pound, James'_

"I knew that she was alive, and that she'd taken Savannah to protect her, but I thought I could handle the situation quietly, and out of the eyes of the authorities...for everyone's sakes. Savannah's, yours, the Babylon Project's and..."

"And Sarah Connor's"

It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and he sighed, acknowledging the truth.

"Yeah, and hers. As soon as I knew of the Police's involvement, I knew it could have led to her arrest from the outstanding charges from eight years ago, her alleged involvement in the murder of Miles Dyson, the bank robbery...all of that"

"And as she is currently protecting Savannah," Weaver finished for him," That would have... _complicated_ matters"

He nodded. "If that had happened, then I think it would have done. That machine is still out there, Ms Weaver, and it's dangerous. It's already targeted Savannah once for who-knows-what reason, and I knew sat least she'd be safe with Sarah..."

"Even if she is a murderer?"

"She didn't kill Dyson," Ellison replied, "That's one thing I'm sure of"

"Oh?" Weaver inclined her head," And you know this because...?"

How _did_ he know she was innocent of that crime? There'd been no physical evidence of her innocence, no corroborative eyewitnesses to place her somewhere else, no DNA or fingerprint traces other than the ones in the reports. Yet, deep down in his very soul, he knew she hadn't committed murder. She was bold, forthright and believed in her cause, but she was no cold-blooded killer.

And she had been right about the machines...even though he'd thought her crazy then.

"Let's just say I've stared into the eyes of enough of them," He said," And she didn't have that look in hers"

"I see"

Her voice was still quiet, tinged with her soft Scots accent, and he was startled when she leaned forward, clasping her hands together on the desk in front of her.

"You trust her, then?"

"I do"

"Do you also trust me, James?"

Her question caught him off guard. Did he trust her? He worked for her, sure, but trusting her was another issue. From the beginning he'd been aware her manner could be somewhat aloof, even chilly at times, and after he'd dug up Cromartie's body and given it to her she'd shocked him at revealing it to be John Henry's new interface...and that he was to be its new 'teacher'.

Yet looking into her eyes, he remembered that she had been the only one who had believed his story about another 'him' that had killed a man, the only one who he had been able to confide in.

The only one who'd had faith in him...and in that moment, he knew the answer.

"Yes," He said," I trust you"

Catherine gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"I am pleased that you do. I will admit that when you declined to tell me that a machine had tried to attack Savannah, and when you ensured that John Henry also lied for you, I was...," She paused for a moment, as if searching for the correct word to use,"... _Disappointed_ "

"However," She continued, "Upon reflection, I can see that your actions in this matter have been made in order to both protect Savannah, and to an extent myself from a perceived threat, and to do it in a quiet and careful manner that would not draw unwarranted attention to us all, and for those actions I believe I at least owe you my thanks"

As always, she had surprised him. He'd expected a cold fury from her, yet she was far more conciliatory than he'd hoped she would be. Rising from her chair, she walked back to the window, a position that he'd often seen her adopt when she was contemplating something, her eyes watching the ever-changing patterns of the traffic in the city streets below, and he waited, knowing there was more to come.

"In the elevator I told you that I believed that someday both your survival and Savannah's survival might depend upon John Henry's survival, did I not?"

"You did"

"It was perhaps a rather blunt statement, but one I do believe is true"

He frowned.

"What makes you so sure?"

She turned to face him and spread her hands.

"Have we not seen the evidence in front of us, James? Have we not seen the evidence of the machines themselves, and of the attacks both on John Henry and now on Savannah?"

Ellison rubbed his chin. "You think all this is leading somewhere?"

"I do, yes...and so, I believe, do you"

"Me...?"

"You went to see Dr Peter Silberman in connection with the Connor case, didn't you?" Catherine walked back towards him, gesturing to a closed file at one side of her desk," You were injured by him...and he is now a resident at the facility where he was the resident psychiatrist"

Ellison eyed the file, and felt an inward shudder as he recalled the fire that the man had started...the inferno that would have killed him, had Sarah Connor not saved him from it.

"Yes, I went to see him. I was looking for background information...and I had a hand from a machine to show him, one that I'd found at a crime scene"

Weaver had taken up a position by her desk. "And when you did?"

"He flipped out"

"Flipped out?"

She looked faintly puzzled, and he shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah, he...well, I guess it must have sent him over the edge, not that I think he had far to go anyway. He couldn't take it, started telling me that I was some kind of agent for stopping her and that he couldn't allow that to happen"

"Despite at this point Sarah Connor being officially dead?"

Ellison gave a tight-lipped smile. "I tried to tell him that, but he didn't seem to take it in."

She was silent for a moment.

"But you now believe that both he and Sarah Connor were telling the truth? "

He took a deep breath.

"Yes, I think she is"

Again she was quiet, watching him.

"As do I"

Before he could speak, she continued.

"Sarah Connor told you that the machines come from the future, and that there is a war between mankind and the machines. The complexity of them, which is far in excess of the kind of technology that is available today, and their lethal programming, are elements that lend themselves to that explanation, don't you agree?"

Ellison inclined his head. "Agreed"

She gave a glacial smile.

"No doubt you have wondered in the past why I was so ambitious in my desire to push Project Babylon on, and in my using your finding of one of the machines as an interface for that project. It has been because I had come to the same conclusion as Sarah Connor, and my words to you in the elevator reflect that concern" She paused as she moved to sit down once more, crossing her long legs and gesturing to the window, "We have seen already that there is an outside force, a project that has taken shape somewhere out there, that has been capable of being able to both find John Henry and to attack him..."

"Mr Murch did say that he thought the attack was to actually kill John Henry," Ellison said with a frown, "He called it his 'brother'"

"Quite so, and I believe that the arbiter of that attack is the same entity, the 'brother' he referred to, that is responsible for the attack on Savannah, and for the eventual building of the machines that we have witnessed in our present time"

There was truth in her words, and deep down, he knew it.

"We need to prevent this entity from being able to grow, to infect others. And to do so, we need to take down those who work for it, in whatever capacity"

"Before it becomes too powerful to fight it?"

"Precisely"

He stared at her for a moment, and then glanced down at his watch, an action that Weaver noticed.

"It's time?"

He nodded, moving to rise. "Yes, I said I'd be there as we arranged"

Weaver merely nodded her assent, and he began to walk towards the door, then stopped and looked back at her.

"Mrs Weaver?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think that we _can_ stop it?"

Weaver sketched the ghost of smile in response.

"With John Henry's help, James, I think that we can"

"I hope so" He murmured, wanting to believe her, "I really hope so"

Then he was gone, and she walked back to her window, her eyes taking in the taking in the vista of the city laid out beneath her. Like so many ants the figures of people moved back and forth amidst the long lines of traffic, going about their daily business and mired in their own cares and worries.

The world around her...the world she'd come to, the world she now existed in, the world that was hers and the world of the child who had become her daughter, the young girl who would grow into a woman, unaware of the terrible fate that she and so many billions of others would have shared... _if_ they succeeded in stopping the thing that had now been born.

" _I hope so_ " James had said.

And for all their sakes, so did she...


End file.
